vharley's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Palm Springs, California

Ruddy's General Store Museum

This general store offers visitors a glimpse back into the 1930s.
Landers, California

The Integratron

Experience a quartz crystal sound bath inside a storied, all-wood sound-chamber.
Yermo, California

Calico Ghost Town

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.
Bakersfield, California

Last Woolworth's Lunch Counter

An antique store houses the last operational diner from the defunct department store chain.
Cabazon, California

Cabazon Dinosaurs

The "world's biggest dinosaur" once housed a creationist museum in its abdomen.
Banning, California

The Museum of Pinball

The biggest pinball arcade in the world has over 600 pinball machines, and 300 arcade machines.
Oro Grande, California

Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch

Hundreds of trees made from glass bottles make up this forest on Route 66.
Hesperia, California

Summit Inn Restaurant

The last Americana on Route 66.
Hi Vista, California

Sanctuary Adventist Church

The "Kill Bill Church" was transformed into a place of worship after a long Hollywood history.
Oxnard, California

La Jenelle Park

Rusty pieces of metal jutting out of a breakwater are all that's visible of the 12,500-ton ocean liner that capsized just off the beach.
San Juan Capistrano, California

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Oldest building in California still in use.
Riverside, California

The Parent Washington Navel Tree

This California tree is the single source of the state's entire orange industry.
Lancaster, California

Antelope Valley Indian Museum

Built by one man in the '20s, this site is now a museum representing the Great Basin cultures.
Lancaster, California

Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve

Each year these high desert hills are absolutely covered with poppy flowers in a surreal show of nature.
Lancaster, California

Civic Musical Road

Finale of "William Tell Overture" can be heard as drivers pass over grooves in the road.
Lake Los Angeles, California

Lake Los Angeles

A dry lake is what remains of a community founded on a real estate scam.
Camarillo, California

Scary Dairy

Graffiti-covered ruins that were once part of a farm owned by a mental hospital.
Newport Beach, California

California's Coconut Palm

One of the only known surviving coconut palm trees in the entire state.
Tustin, California

Tustin Blimp Hangar #2

This enormous World War II relic is one of the largest wooden structures in the world.
Simi Valley, California

Ronald Reagan’s Situation Room

The White House Situation Room was taken apart in 2006 and shipped to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
Costa Mesa, California

California Scenario

A small sculpture garden that provides a microcosmic representation of California.
Thousand Oaks, California

Gardens of the World

From Japan to Italy, this California park explores the world's cultures through their gardens.
Agua Dulce, California

Vasquez Rocks

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.
Santa Clarita, California

Gibbon Conservation Center

This Southern Californian Conservation Center is home to singing and howling apes.